The New York State Public High School Athletics Associationor the NYSPHSAA divides the state of New York into 11 geographic sections. Pearl River High School plays football in Section I, Class A of the NYSPHSAA. This highly competitive, very successful Section includes many strong public school athletic programs as well as one private, parochial school.

New York City schools are not part of th NYPSHSAA and thereby do not participate in the state football championship series. The Long Island sections consisting of Section 9 (Nassau County) and Section 11 (Suffolk County) have decided not to participate in the NYSPHSAA state football championship series either.

All schools are currently divided into classes, determined by the student enrollment population size of the entire school. In October of each year, the enrollment of grades 9, 10 and 11 are combined to determine the "classification placement for the following football season as the seniors will have graduated and the juniors, sophomores and freshmen then will have moved up a grade and are eligible to play varsity football. NYSPHSAA attempts on a statewide basis to have an equal number of schools in each classification (AA, A, B, C and D) and therefore periodically reviews cutoffs delineating classifications."